Recently, a Fox News weather reporter heroically saved the life of a woman who was trapped, drowning in a submerged vehicle while he was covering the impact of Hurricane Helene. The devastation from Hurricane Helene has left dozens dead across coastal states in the southeast. However, the brave actions of the reporter were able to prevent the death toll from rising one more.
As meteorologist Bob Van Dillen was on the ground in Atlanta, covering the local impact of the weather event, he noticed a woman trapped in her car. Upon calling 911 and realizing first responders would not be able to arrive in time, he took matters into his own hands, charging into the deep water. Van Dillen helped pull the woman out of the car window as water was rushing in the vehicle, guiding her to safety.
“I know that we’re swamped here with all of the 911 calls, because there are so many high-water rescues that we’ve already documented so far… [she] called 911 and, five minutes, 10 minutes, and you could hear screaming, right? You could hear through my live shot, real loud,” he said, describing the event to “Fox & Friends.” “That’s her car right there. So I just said, ‘You know what? I realize I’m with you guys on the air, but I can’t let it go.’”
Van Dillen further recounted how he was led to “drop everything,” in his live broadcast, and dive into the water. “I took my wallet out of my pants, and I went in there, waded in, got chest deep,” he said. “You know how it is. I was concerned that one, maybe there was a nice swift current, but the current really wasn’t that bad. But, the water temperature I was afraid of, too. The water temperature is probably about 80 [degrees]. So, all of those things were working pretty nicely, so, that being said, the water came up to about my chest.”
The meteorologist described the dire scene in which the water had reached the woman’s neck. “She was in there, she was still strapped into her car and the water was actually rising and getting up into the car itself, so she was about, almost neck deep submerged in her own car.” Van Dillen added that if he hadn’t been there to carry out the rescue, “She would have drowned.”
He continued, describing how the rescue unfolded. “You know, I don’t know. I told her ‘OK, undo your seatbelt,’ she undid her seatbelt. I said, ‘Let me have your phone, let me have your bags,’ then put [her] on my back and we walked in… she’s fine, she was in shock,” Van Dillen said. “She was cold, shivering, so I gave her one of my shirts and she was in our car, just warming up, about 20 minutes later the fire department came, saw that we were OK and went on to the next rescue, wherever they’re going,” he continued. “Her husband just picked her up about five minutes ago,” he said.
Watch Fox News coverage of the incident below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
"*" indicates required fields